[90]
while demanding the utmost rigour of the law from
the judges, suggests a loophole for clemency, not
openly, for that would imply a pledge on our part,
but by giving a plausible suspicion of our meaning.
This device is employed in a number of controversial
themes, among them the following. “A ravisher,
unless within thirty days he secure pardon both
from his own father and the father of the ravished
girl, shall be put to death. A man who has
succeeded in securing pardon from the father of the
girl, but not from his own, accuses the latter of
madness.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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